The Wonderful World of Mock-Ups

What is a mock-up? It’s a recreation of a live recording using samples of other live recordings. In other words, it’s Frankenstein’s monster. However, it’s also a great way to study a composition and learn the strengths and weaknesses of libraries.

Here, then, are a few of my mock-ups:

1) For a class on mixing at NYU I constructed this mockup from one of my favorite movies Close Encounters of the Third Kind called “Forming the Mountain.” Just for fun I put it to picture. The black in the middle is because I had to undo the music edit made in the film.

2) “Baby’s Trip to Earth” from John Williams’ score to Superman. This was done to highlight Cinesamples’ Hollywoodwinds library.

3) More from Superman. Here’s the “Planet Krypton.” This one was actually an official demo on the Cinesamples Cinebrass web page.

4.5) — the Death of Jonathan Kent continued, in a cue called “Leaving Home.”

5) Here’s John Williams fun “March from 1941.” Again, I was playing with Cinebrass, but I also got wrapped up in trying to complete such a long and complicated piece. All the notes are there, but it lacks the élan of the original recording.

6) Here’s John Barry’s beautiful Main Titles to “Out of Africa.” I wanted to play with my new East West Hollywood Strings and Hollywood Brass, but at the last minute I switched the melody to use Spitfire Audio’s Albion library.

7) Here’s Marion’s Theme from Raiders of the Lost Ark. The main reason behind making this was to learn how to use Vienna Ensemble Pro 5 in surround with Pro Tools 10 and to experiment with Hollywood Strings (which I combined with Spitfire Solo Strings). The link above is for the stereo mix down, but if you want to hear it in all its surround glory then download the files here (warning: it’s 155MB).

8) Here’s one I did to teach myself Cinematic Strings 2, which is a nice sounding string library with just five patches — one for each section. I combined it with Spitfire Solo Strings, Cinebrass Pro, Spitfire Percussion and VSL SE Woodwinds. The piece is the famous “Nimrod” movement from Elgar’s Enigma Variations.